Is Your Practice SEOcial?

There is a very technical side of SEO that is best left to the professionals, but there are a few things you can be doing to enhance your SEO, hence increasing your online presence.

In today’s world, that leads to more patients. In the old days of SEO (as in a few months ago!), SEO meant loading your practice homepage with keyword after keyword. Well Google has adapted and changed the algorithm it uses to a favor more social sites.

What this means is that the more social media sites your homepage is linked to, the better. So, if you haven’t already, it is time to get social.

To start, create a Facebook and Twitter page for your practice and create a social media content calendar to keep you on track. Social media is like a plant – if you don’t water it a few times a week you can bet that it will shrivel up and die.

Creating a content calendar could be the difference between social life and death You can find a great guideline at socialmediatoday.com/node/440104. The author, Danielle Leitch, explains in detail how to create a calendar and what kind of content to use. Remember, your patient base is not as excited about dentistry as you are, so post things relevant to their life.

What Google and other search engines want is a site that is visited from multiple platforms, which means it is very important to post links to your practice’s homepage to all of your social sites.

The idea is to get people to click on the link and visit your site. Google recognizes these clicks and favors your site more with the increasing number of clicks. Expert tip: A great way to get followers and homepage views is to start a blog.

That’s right, blog. Take some time out of your week to write articles on dentistry and what is working for your practice. Read other blogs and articles and reference those authors in your blog.

Then, inform the authors that you have referenced their work and they may share it with the thousands of followers they have. Keep in mind that creating a following on social media can be a daunting task. Many businesses get frustrated and give up, but the ones that stick with it and focus on creating great content see great returns.

Stay with it and support your efforts by advertising in your practice and holding promotions to encourage people to “Like” and “Follow” you. For ideas and examples of how to run your practice’s Facebook page, check out Riverfront Dental Designs.